Spot.IM — a disruptive social engagement platform that works with major U.S. digital publishers including News Corp. and Meredith — analyzed results from 526 random participants on consumer consumption of digital media and found that:
- 53% of Americans don’t read print newspapers anymore (15% still read them daily in print, not digitally)
o By age:
- 72% of 18-29 year olds never read print newspapers
- 56% of 30-44 year olds never read print newspapers
- 47% of 45-59 year olds never read print newspapers
- 35% of 60+ year olds never read print newspapers
- 33% of people would like to see less articles on their Facebook feeds (52% don’t care). When comparing by age group, interest in seeing articles in Facebook feeds is highest among 18-29 year olds, with interest dropping dramatically to 11-13% for respondents 30 years of age or older.
- 18-19 year olds overwhelmingly prefer to use social media when commenting on news articles online (66%) while preferences shift with age, with respondents 45 years of age or older preferring comments sections on publishers’ websites.
- People are most likely to comment on social media regarding the topics of humor (48%), politics (36%), food (30%), and world news (30%). Fashion (11%) is least popular for commenting via social media. When broken down between men and women, men are much more likely to comment via social media regarding technology, politics, foreign policy, national security and sports while women are more likely to comment on topics such as animal rights, health, food, personal empowerment and fashion. Men and women fair closest in social commenting on the topics of faith, world news and humor.
o Topic popularity by gender:
| Topic | Female | Male |
| Humor | 55.47% | 42.06% |
| Politics | 28.10% | 46.43% |
| Human Rights | 34.67% | 25.79% |
| Food | 35.77% | 23.41% |
| World News | 27.37% | 32.94% |
| Health | 35.04% | 22.22% |
| Animal Rights | 35.77% | 18.25% |
| Entertainment | 31.39% | 21.03% |
| Education | 29.93% | 20.24% |
| Cute Animals | 36.50% | 13.49% |
| Sports | 14.60% | 30.16% |
| National Security (Terrorism) | 15.69% | 26.59% |
| Technology News | 9.85% | 30.56% |
| Foreign Policy | 12.41% | 26.19% |
| Faith | 18.25% | 17.86% |
| Personal Empowerment | 20.44% | 9.92% |
| Pop Culture | 17.88% | 9.13% |
| Fashion | 16.06% | 7.14% |
- 21% of people admit to engaging on social media (Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, etc.) during a presidential debate. Another 20% engage via text messaging.
- 61% of total respondents do not agree that Donald Trump receives too much negative coverage from the media. When broken down by political affiliation, 85% of Republicans, 53% of Libertarians, and 43% of Independents, and 39% respondents not identifying with a major or third/independent party said they believe Donald Trump receives too much negative press. Only 9% of Democrats and 11% of Greens agreed.
- 88% do not subscribe to an online news service such as WSJ.com or NYTimes.com.
- 47% say the evening (6pm-10pm) is when they are more likely to share or comment on a news or social site.
- 45% of Americans watch more NBC TV news coverage than CNN (42%) ABC (40%) and CBS (40%). When broken down by respondents designating political affiliation (520), more Republicans watch Fox News than any other network for news programming. Democrats, Libertarians and respondents identifying as non-affiliated listed NBC most, while Greens chose PBS and respondents identifying as Independents chose CNN most.
- When asked to check off sites they frequent from a list of top-ranked news sites, CNN.com was most popular overall. Among Democrats, Independents and non-affiliated respondents, CNN.com ranked first in popularity. Among Republicans, FoxNews.com ranked most popular. The Huffington Post and USAToday.com ranked most popular among Libertarian respondents, while The Huffington Post, NYTimes.com and Buzzfeed tied for most popular among respondents identifying with the Green Party. The chart below shows how the top 40 news websites faired, broken down by respondents’ political party associations.
Since Spot.IM partners with digital publishers to help retain and engage readers on their sites vs. social media platforms, they commissioned the study to survey the landscape and find out current behaviors and trends to not only save publishers, but make their platform more impactful as well.